Urge to Eat and Body Mass Index: Exploring the Association with Diffuse and Defined Emotions

Introduction: Emotional eating is more common in individuals with obesity and is a predictor of increased body mass index (BMI). This study aimed to identify the types of emotions associated with the urge to eat in subjects with varying BMI levels.

Adult participants were recruited as part of a validity study for a new questionnaire designed to assess an individual's relationship with their body. The emotional eating scale of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), as well as questions on past and current eating disorders, body weight status and history, health, and sociodemographic data, were assessed through an online questionnaire.

Six hundred participants were included, comprising 80.5% women. A total of 27.0% were living with overweight and 21.2% with obesity. The urge to eat was significantly more frequent in response to diffuse emotions than to defined emotions, independent of sex and BMI level. The frequency of emotional eating was positively associated with BMI for all emotions explored by the DEBQ. The defined emotion "depressed/discouraged" induced an urge to eat more often in individuals with obesity. "Feeling abandoned" was the diffuse emotion most associated with obesity (53.5% of subjects with obesity ate often or very often versus 28.6% of subjects with normal weight).

This study highlights the need to explore diffuse emotions in subjects with obesity.